- Rangeoctave and a fourth
- Notes92, 11 different
- ScaleMinor, plus F♯ and G♯
- Time3/4
- Length hereabout 26 s
- Source editionG minor
About Carol of the Bells
The Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych wrote “Shchedryk” for unaccompanied choir, built on a four-note folk chant sung at the New Year; it was first performed in Kyiv in 1916. A touring Ukrainian choir brought it to the United States in the early 1920s, where English words about bells were later written for it. Leontovych died in 1921 and his music is in the public domain; the English lyric is not, and is not used here.
The whole piece is that four-note figure repeated while the harmony moves around it. The tab follows the soprano part: the figure, the same figure a third higher, a descent from the top, and two rising scales that use the raised sixth and seventh of the minor.
Play Carol of the Bells on your instrument
18 of the 27 playable instruments here have every note it needs. 17 play it where the library writes it; the rest move it to another key or octave, and each page says which. Every page has the instrument itself, with the song loaded, above the notes.
- Piano letter notes
- Oud notes
- Violin notes
- Cello notes
- Xylophone letter notes
- Marimba letter notes
- Glockenspiel letter notes
- Steel Drum letter notes
- Harmonica tabs
- Trumpet notes
- Clarinet notes
- Saxophone notes
- Flute notes
- Recorder notes
- Tuba notes
- Euphonium notes
- Trombone notes
- Accordion letter notes
Instruments that cannot play it
- Kalimba — it would need F♯4, G♯4, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Mbira — it would need F♯4, G♯4, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Guzheng — it would need G♯4, A♯4, C♯5, G5, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Handpan — it would need E3, F♯3, G♯3, B3, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Erhu — it would need B5, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Dulcimer — it would need A♯4, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Ocarina — it would need G5, A5, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Harp — it would need F♯4, G♯4, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Lyre — it would need F♯4, G♯4, which it does not have in any size or key here.
Carol of the Bells letter notes
This is the soprano line. Written in A minor, from E4 to A5, with each note’s number in the scale under it — the form that transfers to any instrument. A dash holds a note another beat, an underline is half a beat, and each line is one phrase.
Carol of the Bells (Shchedryk) — letter notes · tonalics.com
Where these notes come from
Mykola Leontovych, “Shchedryk”, 1916. The melody is public domain; the later English lyric is not used here.
The melody was not written down from memory. It is derived from a published transcription and compared, note for note, with independent ones:
The soprano line of Leontovych’s “Shchedryk” (1916), one pass. The choral score states the four-note figure seventeen times before it moves; the tab states it four times. No second machine-readable transcription was found, so this one rests on the engraved score alone.